That Time I Met Ozzy Wearing a Bathrobe in his Hotel Room…

Rita Ora has on a bathrobe in a public event where many were present and that makes her okay, and Harvey Weinstein had on a bathrobe in his hotel room where a woman was present and that makes him a creep. Females are inconsistent and dishonest and I have seen females at work sexually flirt and joke with good looking higher paid guys and laugh at return sexual banter, but complain and harshly label an unattractive guy as a creep for doing the exact same thing.

I…I cringe at the stupidity presented here. I know, I can’t expect much from Yahoo comments, but seriously. Almost as frightening was the amount of people supporting this guy’s comment.

So let me tell you a little story…

A long time ago in a high school I once attended, they had a radio station that broadcasted in a small radius – maybe a handful of towns received our signal. I got my DJ license, and it being around 1990, I hosted a metal show on Tuesday evenings.

This allowed me the opportunity to meet some really cool musicians, doing interviews by phone or in person and whatnot. I am particularly honored to have met Warren Haynes of Allman Brothers fame, and Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave fame.

But nothing will top my crowning achievement of interviewing the legendary Ozzy Osbourne.

We were coming up on the 10th anniversary of Randy Rhoads’ death. Randy was his guitarist after Ozzy left Black Sabbath and tragically died in a plane crash. I wanted to see if I could wrangle an interview with him to honor the anniversary of Randy’s passing.

I don’t think Mike Schnapp, his US manager at the time, ever knew that I was only 16 when I started calling him, nor did I divulge it in case he thought I was just a fan trying to get access – I wanted to be professional. And after months of some back and forth, Mike set up the interview at the Helmsley Palace Hotel.

At the lobby of the hotel I am greeted by one of his team, who escorts me up the room. The guy is friendly, asks if I’ve ever met him before and assures me he’s a great guy.

At the door…knock…door opens.

And there stands my musical idol, OZZY FRICKIN’ OSBOURNE, in his bathrobe.

I was more bemused that he was shorter than me, though I must admit him being in a bathrobe was a bit disarming. I’m used to the black outfits, jewelry and crazy hair. This guy looks like he just stepped out of the spa.

But here is the ENORMOUS DIFFERENCE between my experience being in a celebrity’s hotel room while they wore a bathrobe and the experiences of many other women lodging complaints about other celebrities in the news today…

Ozzy. Wasn’t. Inappropriate. AT ALL.

He never flirted. He never came on to me, he never made a suggestive remark, he never asked me to do anything for or to him. He didn’t touch me (I think we perhaps shook hands at initially meeting), or try to hug me or massage me or anything like that. I asked a handful of questions and he talked for 30 minutes.

Ozzy Osbourne was a perfect gentleman and a consummate professional.

The other celebrities in the news now? Not so much. I never felt uncomfortable, or threatened, or got any bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Trust me, I know the feeling, like the vast majority of women do at one time or another.

What is my point in all this?

The commentor above clearly has no frame of reference, and little capacity to accept the words of women. Do women falsely accuse? Yes. But few are truly willing to be publicly scrutinized, picked apart, called horrible names and smeared like they are in this day and age just for a few minutes of pseudofame.

Weinstein wasn’t just sitting there in his bathrobe. He was trying to coerce them into sexual favors based on his position of power in the industry. He could make or break their careers, in an industry that can be extremely hard to make a living at.

The workplace scenario – men cannot sexually flirt with those in lower levels to them without the possibility of it being a power play ala Weinstein “give me a backrub, you know we have an opening at the head of the Whatever Department…” Women are held to the same standard – they cannot coerce those in lower levels to do inappropriate and unwanted things with no fear of reprisal.

Does it happen? Yes, all the time. Which is why so many people are talking about it (both women and men who have been victimized). It’s more common than Generic Man may have ever realized. Perhaps they simply can’t wrap their heads around the enormity of the issue. Perhaps they don’t want to believe that their mother was forced to smile while enduring slaps on the rear as a secretary at the law firm, or that their sister was consistently pinched or grabbed while waitressing by the truck driver who always stopped in for coffee during her shift.

Maybe they don’t want to think that their daughter could have been coerced into sexual favors by her boss for fear of losing her job when other jobs have become very slim where she lives now. It’s pretty horrendous to think about and easy to say “nowaythathappens!” – butyoumightbesurprised.

So we are left to be angry, and rather than tamping it down, trying to to forget about it, or attempting straight-up denial, more and more and finding their voice and expressing their anger.

The question is whether more will listen to them or more will try and squash it down.

This is your mom. I know you had a great interview with Ozzy way back when and you handled it perfectly. It is an important message to point out how power distorts and even corrupts and should be taken seriously and I’m glad you posted. You never told me he was in a bathrobe!

K, first, meeting Ozzy is super cool. 🙂 (And I love that your mom commented on this, hahaha). Second, that guy you quoted up there – the Yahoo commenter guy talking about Rita Ora in her bathrobe vs. Harvey Weinstein? I read that and was *immediately* reminded of THIS: https://wonkette.com/623001/the-week-in-terrible-men-evil-women-wear-leggings-just-to-torture-incels …… so this article is from Wonkette (a very lol place, btw) and it’s all about a group of guys who call themselves “incels”, short for “involuntarily celibate” (*rolls eyes*) and they have some seriously whacked “logic”. They basically, like, think that sex is a god-given right like breathing air or freedom or liberty; they think they are rightfully owed sex by anyone they want. They have all this weird insider lingo like “Chad Thundercock” (the perfect “Alpha Male”) and “femoid” and shit. Just visit that link to read some of the legit crazy.

But these guys and, like, the men’s rights activists guys are incredibly dangerous to women. They *hate* women and are such a big part of the existing rape culture – scary fuckers when you really think about what they’re spouting. Then you try to figure out where they even got this junk from, how they were indoctrinated…ugh.

Essentially, my point was just that Yahoo commenter guy reminded me of these fuckers, lol. And as wonderful as it is that the men in power who are abusers are finally being held accountable for their actions, we should remember that there are boys like these out there who are somehow getting this bullshit sold to them (and that there are guys out there *selling* boys this fucked up narrative) that we somehow, I don’t know how, need to figure out how to talk about & deal with too. You know? The conversation about what women have had to live with on a daily basis has started (thank the goddess!!) and we need to carry it on because it’s bigger and more pervasive than people truly realize.

JAYSUS those men are nuts! “Women show off their bodies to hot guys but when they see me they hide themselves – SLUTS” Or, maybe you just give off a super creepy vibe that they are instinctively trying to protect themselves from you slug. UGH.